Prologue
Before I tell you the story of how I almost died - more than once - I will let you in on the secret that I had to keep in order to survive. My name, my true name, is Saoirse. I am the youngest child and only daughter of Denethor - but if you had asked him of my existence, he would have denied it. I am the little sister of Boromir and Faramir - but if you had asked them before the war, they would not have remembered. Denethor had left me in my mothers hands unnamed after my birth and she gifted me my name as a promise of a better future. But she could not promise such a thing, not with what awaited me - but I will not get ahead of things.
Denethor had no use for a daughter. Daughters could not fight, could not plot, they could only be married off to create unison between lands. The second I was born and my father learned I was a girl - weak, in his eyes, he plotted to have me married to the Haradrim Prince, who was still a babe himself. My mother told me she still remembered the gleam in Denethor's eyes as he told her about his plan, about how that would make him the Steward that made peace with the Haradrim by offering them his daughter. That look could still send shivers down her spine. So she saved me. She proved Denethor wrong in his beliefs that women could not plot - my mother made the whole of Gondor and even beyond believe that I had died, as had so many other babes before me, in my sleep. Most importantly, Denethor and the Haradrim Prince believed I was dead. She sent me off to the Riddermark and plotted her own death - succoumbed by grief - before following me.
I wish my father would have known before he died about the mastermind my mother was, because there was not a single fault in her plan. She told me about who I really was when I turned 16, and I managed to keep our secret for neigh on 5 years. And then I fell in love - or rather, realised I was in love.
I was in love with Eomer. I knew it because I missed him when he was away on marshall business; I worried for him. I knew it because I smiled when anyone brought him up in conversation. I knew it because, when I was at ease, my mind wandered to him and how he made me laugh, how he could strike up any type of conversation out of nowhere without needing any incentive, and my mind wandered often to how he cared for those he held dear. I also kned I should have never allowed myself to fall in love with him, because it could only bring us both pain.
Saoirse means freedom and I can guarantee you, you will see the irony of my name several times throughout this story.